Dead Faces: An Avatar Danny Phantom Crossover
by atippleofyourtears
Summary: To save their world, Team Phantom has to stop a horrible war in another, in a world of Four Nations. Can Danny, Sam, and Tuck help Aang and the gang topple the Fire Nation? Or are Earth and the Four Nations doomed to destruction by two very evil spirits?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, Avatar, or any other fictional work referred to in this story. Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, and others do. The characters and whatnot being used are only being used for fun and not profit.

--

**The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.**

**-- **

**Dead Faces**

**By psychicsaphie**

**-- **

**Prologue - The Beginning**

**-- **

**Millenia ago...  
**

_Everything the Power does, it does in a circle._

This was the whisper of old mothers, grandmothers, the wise women and wise men, those that understood the nature of the world.

Circles and cycles--Man was born, man tilled the earth and hunted and lived off the land. The air was in his breath, water was in his blood, heat was in his body, his body was made of earth, and they knew because when man died, he went back into the earth.

There was balance in the world.

The Nomads understood it best and when petty rivalries and tribal concerns started to trouble the rest of the world, they withdrew to understand the nature of the world even better.

They lived in the mountains, far away from the rest of mankind and learned how to live from the sky bison, the peaceful giants that roamed over the skies in herds like living clouds. The sky-bison could not be tamed, but the nomads didn't try to tame them. They watched them and befriended them--they learned from them.

They understood that the world worked in circles and when they learned from their Bison brothers to move the air, they moved in circles too.

The Air Nomads were the first to learn.

The brown-skinned Tribe in the North was full of hunters. They clubbed the cat-seals and speared the six-flippered whales and thanked the spirits for their food because they knew they could not exist if it weren't for the circles of the world.

The Moon pulled the sea and sea pushed back, and they watched as the tides brought in the shoals of fish, and the fish brought out the penguins, and the penguins brought out the cat-seals. Their survival depended on cycles, on the push and pull of the moon and the ocean.

In the Water Tribe, they learned to push and pull the sea like the moon, and when some grew warlike and others grew more spiritual, a great number of Tribeman migrated all the way to the South of the world, to live in peace. The move was rather easy--at the time, the Air Nomads were always willing to give Water Tribesman rides north and south on their bison during their travels, after all.

The Water Tribe was the second to learn.

In a cave, deep under the ground, two lovers met in the dark, away from the war and hatred between their villages. From the badger-moles that tunneled through the mountains, they learned how to stand strong.

In the end, when only one of them was left, she needed to keep standing strong.

The Sons and Daughters of the Earth were the next to learn.

Where the ground bubbled and steamed, it took longer. They were a practical people, and they had no use for spirits and stories, but they were also creators, inventors. Soon, they realized that the spirit of the Sun gave them strength, a gift. Their respect for the spirits--especially the sun--grew.

The Children of the Sun were the last to learn, but they were by no means weak.

It was a gift, that some had and some did not. It was a gift given by the spirits of the sun and moon, a gift granted by the spirits of the earth and air.

The ability to heal the sick and wounded, the ability to build cities of stone, roads, the ability to smelt ore with ease, to create works of art and engineering the world had never seen, the joy of flight. These gifts were meant to be shared.

Human nature got in the way.

No one can really say what started it--most likely an argument over land or hunting rights. No one can really say who started it--whether the first village destroyed was flooded, blown to pieces, smashed with boulders, or burned to the ground.

It didn't matter. The balance was lost.

The stories that survived the time said that in places of great upheavel, battlegrounds, where forests were burned, wherever part of the world lay dead and dying, the spirit of the entire world sometimes showed itself, bodiless and voiceless, only great, glowing eyes that appeared and wept for the life lost.

Soldiers fell in great battle, and in the middle of the battleground, the spirit wept.

A city was flooded, and the spirit looked on from a hillside and wept.

A whole stretch of forest and all the villages in it burned and the spirit wept.

One day, during a great terrible battle, the spirit showed itself again, but this time it was not weeping.

This time it was _angry_.

The soldiers of both armies stopped fighting and quaked with fear as the eyes rose up, as hands appeared, trying to stop spears and turn aside swords, as legs moved the hulking giant in front of volleys of fireballs, tried to stamp down waves of earth.

When they realized it could touch nothing, the battle raged on, and the bodiless spirit tried to stop it.

Then the spirit finally understood what it had to do.

A great wind started to blow and the earth began to shake. Rain and hail pelted down, soaking the earth, and despite the rain, fire sparked to life in the mountainside, burning without fuel in the dark.

A storm had rolled in.

The winds were so strong that in the fields, the armies were forced to hunker down in their camps and stop fighting, lest they be blown away.

Wind and water, fire and stone.

Just like any birth, the birth of the spirit of the world was not gentle.

At first.

After the storm died down and the clouds cleared, after the fires burned out, after the stone stopped crumbling and popping, after the rain stopped falling, there was silence. Only the gentle shush of the breeze through the mountains.

There were five of them, that ventured up into the mountains, five that had fought in the armies and put aside their quarrel to go up into the mountains together.

Their names have long since been lost to time.

One listened to the earth, one listened to the air, one found strength in the sun, and one found strength in the moon.

The last found strength only in himself.

They were all barely more than children and they went where no one else dared to go.

--

_"What is it? What's in the pit?"_

_"I think..." the Airbender's voice was hushed with awe and disbelief. "I think it's a **girl**."_

_-- _

When the spirit of the world first took on flesh and blood, she did not know how to stand and walk on two legs. She did not know to speak in any language other than what the spirits could understand.

The five of them, enemies at the start, understood that they had chanced upon something greater than them, greater than the war, and worked and lived in peace, even if they did not understand what she truly was. They showed her kindess, they took her in and taught her to speak, they protected her.

One thing she did know how to do, even before she could walk or talk properly, was _Bend_. A flick of her wrist and fire leapt to life, a stamp of her foot could make a mountain grow. Her breath could move the winds, a nod could part a sea.

When she finally learned to stand, it is said she could have made the whole world shake if she wanted to.

They named her Shakti, which means many things, but above all else, means 'divine energy,' partly because the storm had seemed an almost divine thing, an explosion of elemental energy.

…And partly because she never seemed to run out of it.

--

_"Look! Come out and look! She's doing it! Igul, she's a better Earthbender than you!"_

_"She is not! ...No, wait, never mind. She is. How did she teach herself?"_

_"She can Waterbend, too, see? Show them, Shakti! She's better than Naaquiq. And better than Bhala at Airbending, better than Guzu at Firebending."_

_"--Better than you at everything, Autiq."_

_"Oh, shut up."_

_-- _

She learned to speak.

The five listened.

She told them what she was before they met her.

Solid as the earth, fluid as the water, bright as the fire, free as the air, infinite as space, she traversed all elements belonging to the world, without acquiring the identity of any.

In her travels, she saw only pain, the pain of man in the battlefield, the pain of children starving in villages because of war, the pain of felled trees and the spirits that had protected them, and had decided it was time to end it.

She told them about the nature of the world, how it was _meant_ to be; how it had gone astray. She told them stories from when the world was young, she told them about the nature of the spirits, how the sun and moon had come to be, she sang them the songs of the stars.

She had already learned how to stand, so then she learned to walk.

--

When she started walking, she did not stop, and the others followed her wherever she went.

From battlefield to battlefield, where armies were fought to a standstill, from city to city where diplomacy led to peace accords.

From village to village, where she taught peace.

Most loved her.

Some feared her.

The five that traveled with her loved her as much as children could love a mother, as much as siblings could love a sister.

At times they loved her as much as parents could love a child, for when the fighting was over and she was alone, she was very much a child--she would go into fields and lay down amongst the flower or jump into rivers fully clothed.

When the first attempt on her life was made by an angry Water Tribesman, they protected their child.

--

_"You killed my father! When you drowned the fleet, you killed my father! He was just a cook! You owe me your blood!"_

_-- _

She felt the first pangs of her mortality then, but even as she bled, she stopped her companions from killing the man.

--

_"The fleet was raiding villages because of the blood feud. I had to stop it. I'm sorry."_

_"You killed him! You killed all of them!"_

_"Their lives meant just as much to me as the lives of the people in those villages. I had to make a choice. Please understand that. Please understand..."_

_-- _

There were many stories of the first Avatar that were recorded and then lost to time, but one of the ones that lasted the longest was the story of her death.

The name of the battle--even of the war--was forgotten, but it was a terrible one, that even the Air Nomads took part in.

The words of the Water Tribesman had not left her thoughts and as such she did not strike out against any of them, only tried time and time again to disarm all sides.

The storytellers said she swept through the armies in a circle, until all were bowed before her strength and before one another, armies of air, armies of water, armies of earth, armies of fire, armies no more.

--

_"Naaquiq! NAAQUIQ! She's dying!"_

_"I can't--there's too much blood--I can't--"_

_"I know! Make it stop!"_

_"I CAN'T!"_

_-- _

As she lay dying, she told them of the sacrifice she had made, and of the gift she had given to the world.

The Avatar would not stop existing as long as the world existed, so long as the spirit of the world lived.

The spirit of the world would live so long as it was not slain, so long as it hid in flesh and was not brought forward to fight.

--

_"I will not--remember who I am. You will have to remind me. Your children will have to remind me."_

_-- _

The Air temples had already existed, and the Air Nomads, urged on by her Airbending companion, were ready to wait and watch for the Avatar.

The Firebender went on to establish the Fire temples and the Fire Sages, the Waterbender did the same with the Water temples, as did the Earthbender with the Earth temples.

--

_"The palace will be your temple in the Earth Kingdom, too, Shakti. As long as my line reigns, the Avatar will always be welcome in Bǎ Chéng Shì."_

_-- _

The one among them that did not have the gift was asked to care for everything else.

--

_"The spirits gave them strength, but you had your own strength, Autiq, and you are just as important. Be my voice when I'm gone--tell everyone I'm coming **back**."_

_-- _

The Avatar died. In the Eastern Air temple, a newborn infant cried as it breathed its first breath.

_Everything the Power does, it does in a circle._

_-- _

**500 years ago...**

"The door will be closed?" asked the man of the strange spirit.

"Yes, after this, I intend to seal it for good. This place may seem like nothing, but just as there is a world beyond your Spirit World, there is a world beyond this dreary place. These worlds are not meant to be crossed."

The silence was filled by the sound of clocks ticking away.

"I made a mistake," the man admitted mournfully, "Because I lost her, I--"

"Trapped him. When you could have destroyed him. I know."

"In time, he may be free. He may be able to break through the door."

"Oh, I am certain he will, but then, I suppose I'll see you again when you come to stop him from doing it, won't I. Even if you have a different face then," said Clockwork.

With that, he shut the door in the man's face and locked it up tight, a barrier between the Ghost Zone and the Spirit World--which were the same place, really. They couldn't be anymore, not after the war. Not after what had been done.

It was for the good of their world, as well. If Pariah Dark--who could _not_ be destroyed--ever broke free...

Of course, he would. Clockwork knew he would.

Clockwork knew everything.

"Everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be," he said happily to himself.

Everything was meant to move in circles. Even time.

It all looked circular from above, anyway.


	2. Chapter 1 Mallrats

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any other fictional work referred to in this story. Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, and others do. The characters and whatnot being used are only being used for fun and not profit.

---

**The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.**

---

**Dead Faces**

**By Psychicsaphie**

Episode One - Mallrats

---

"Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer."

--Aunt May, Spiderman 2

---

It's always an accident, isn't it? Some freak twist of fate. A twist of the genes, sudden divine intervention, a life chosen for them by someone else--a lab accident.

Yeah, you know that last one? I'm _real_ familiar with it.

In any case, that's usually how it goes. One second, Our Hero is just a normal guy (or girl), uh, maybe even the kind of guy who gets hoisted up the flagpole by his underwear and locked in his locker on a regular basis.

The next, his whole life has changed.

---

"Danny!"

"Is he breathing?"

"Oh my God, this is all my fault."

"Sam, calm down! He's still breathing. Danny, come on, wake up."

"Danny, he's coming this way! You have to wake up!"

"We need you, man."

---

And there the hero is, with all this new power.

Believe me, the first temptation you have, the first thing you think of is what you can get for yourself with it. No matter who you are, no matter how noble you are, you just get this...feeling. Filling you up from the inside. After your stomach turns right-side-in again, and the confusion and fear passes, you just feel...powerful. Strong. It's like being drunk but you can still think. (Not that I even know what being drunk is like yet).

You have the whole world at your fingertips. You do. Unless it's some crappy power. The whole freaking world.

And then you look up, and you see the faces of your friends staring at you, terrified. For a second...it kind of seems like they might be terrified of _you_.

Not of what you've turned into, but of what you can _become_.

They have a right to be scared.

That's when it passes, and you come back down from potential-villain Lala-land (in most cases) and realize that yes, you have superpowers, but that also makes you kind of a total freak.

In the beginning it made me feel stronger, but at the same time, it made me feel more different, more freakish, more out of place with the rest of the world. It was before I realized being different could be a good thing.

It's almost a relief that I had something to fight. When ghosts started getting out through the portal and worming their way into the world other ways, it gave me a reason to have my powers--a purpose.

It made me realize what I had to do. What I COULD do. For myself, yeah, but for my friends, and my family, and my city--and somtimes the world.

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Call me a dork all you like, but comic books are AWESOME teachers.

In fact, if it weren't for comics, I'd probably be dead right now. Lessons learned and all. Three years is a long time when you're a superhero. Figuring that I have at least two fights a day, seven days a week--that's fourteen--times four weeks in a month, that's...fifty-six? Yeah, fifty-six fights a months, times twelve months...uh.

Okay, so I've never really been that good at multiplication past my twelve times-tables, but it's a hell of a lot of fighting. Throw in the occasional city-wide catastrophe, attempted cloning, impending apocalypse, and...dude, I'm really tired. I mean, I should totally have a superhero team backing me up or something. That's not too much to ask, right? Even Stupendous Man had his occasional vacations. He had the League of Righteousness to temp for him.

I guess Sam and Tuck--and Jazz--are sort of my own League of Righteousness though. They've saved my bacon countless times, but they can only help, they can't fight the fights for me--and I don't want them too.

I want them to be safe. I've wanted them to be safe for the last three years.

To think it's been three years, too. I've gotten my grades up since then. A little. I'm hoping to get into the Air Force Academy to become a fighter pilot. That'd be one of the best ways to get into NASA (obviously, I still want to be an astronaut).

If I _can_ be one. How can I leave the atmosphere, let alone my city, when Amity Park is the ghost hotspot of the world? Sometimes I think I have to just stay here my whole life, for the sake of Amity Park, and for the sake of the world.

It's a scary thought.

Anyway, Tuck, on the other hand is going the brainy route (the one I sure can't take) and is planning on getting into MIT. He probably will. At the rate he's going, he's going to be valedictorian. He wants to go into health sciences and technology--whatever that is. When he's not being lazy, he's a genius, pretty much, and Valerie is totally seething jealous of his grades.

Sam's trying to get into working radio. She's already DJing on weekends at a local station. The Purple Haze Power Hour. She's so popular, especially with teens our age, that the station's looking to give her whole evenings instead of just an hour.

The hilarious result of all that is that she's currently the most popular girl in school--ha! No surprised, but she hates it. Every time she does something to try to get everyone to hate her again, it backfires. Like, for instance, the other day she went to school wearing, like, a cowgirl outfit. A real ugly one, too--she looked more like a cow_boy_.

Instead of everyone thinking she was dorky, however, the next day all the girls were wearing ten-gallon hats and these ugly paisley neckerchiefs, and the boys were wearing cowboy boots.

It was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. And get this, the other day, Dash Baxter was wearing _spurs_. Everywhere, he went in the halls, you'd hear _clinkety clinkety clink_. Then he got freaked out. You wanna know why?

_"...I think somebody with clinky shoes is **following** me!"_

He, of course, still has the IQ of a tree stump.

But anyway, Sam, radio DJ extraordinare, is popular now and hates it, but otherwise, she's still...Sam. On those days she's DJing, I usually patrol alone. (The way I figure it is that if she gets the day off, Tuck should have some time to chill out, too, and if I didn't tell him to, he'd probably follow me on patrol every night.) So I take my earbuds and my portable radio with me--Tuck modified it so I can pick up police radio channels--and flip back and forth between them and her station. Every time she DJs and she knows I'm patrolling, she plays a song or two I've been dying to hear, something new from Dumpty Humpty or Blender Full O' Kitties or something, and she has this little five minute call-in, called "Shout Out to the Ghost-Boy."

So I hear things like:

_"Andy, from Amity Park, Illinois, calling--Andy, how are you doing tonight?"_

_"I'm fine. Teehee. Oh my gawd, I can hear myself on the radio." _

_"That's usually how it works, Andy, but that's why I'm in the business and you aren't. Anyway, you sound really excited so I'll let you talk right way--what do you have to say to the ghost-boy?"_

_"Oh my gawd. Okay, so, I don't know if he'll ever hear this, but oh my gawd, Danny Phantom, I totally want to DO you."_

Laughter from Sam._ "Well, don't we all."_

_"And also, y'know, thanks for saving me when that giant monster attacked the amusement park the other day, because, wow, I think was the most scared I've ever been in my life. I was so scared, and you know, he was there. And it's like, who else is always there? You know?_

_I mean, no one in the whole world's obligated to care at all about anybody else or be reliable, not even family, but like, he's always there. And he fights for us, and gets hurt for us, and we're all--all the people in this city--we're like complete strangers. It's all for us, just because he can, and he gets hurt doing it all the time, too._

_And like, you know, there aren't enough heroes in this world, right? But he totally is one. He's a real one, and like, so he makes mistakes, like at the Norcross Tower thing, but big deal. He's human, sort of, and like, he does so much for this city, and like, the news really shouldn't be so down on him, because nobody in this damn city really cared about me. Nobody in this damn world cared about me. That's why, like, I was sleeping under the boardwalk at the amusement park in the first place._

_And the thing was, you know, after the whole fight, he was hurt and he'd saved the day any everything and he still took the time out to like, fly me to this runaways shelter, and there's this really nice lady here running it, and she's, like, helping me get my GED, and it's just...he's a hero, alright? So people saying bad_ bleep _about him should shut up." _

_"That was...that was said way better than I could ever put it, Andy. Hear that, ghost-boy? Here's yet another resident of Amity Park that appreciates all the derring-do you do."_

_"I wanna DO him."_

_"Thanks for calling, Andy. Next caller?" _

Sam and I have been going out since the end of freshman year.

I know I'm still a bit young to say it, I know I should be like the average seventeen-year-old and think that I still should date around or something, but I love her.

Oh wow, do I love her.

She's been amazing at helping me deal with some stuff I had trouble dealing with.

With...Norcross Towers. See, it was this apartment complex they were building in the middle of town.

Was.

It's something...I wish I could forget about.

I guess...every superhero has their moment, when they screw up somehow, like in the Man-Spider #121, when Stacy Gwen falls off the Brooklyn Bridge and the Man-Spider isn't sure if he killed her by accidentally breaking her neck or if the Green Gobber did it.

Norcross Towers was my very own issue #121.

If it wasn't for Sam and Tuck and Jazz, I don't think I could have dealt with it, and even now, I guess...I guess I'm still a bit lost.

I guess I'm still _really_ lost.

But uh, I don't want to talk about that anymore.

So, Jazz is in college now. She didn't get into Yale, but she wound up in Columbia, so that's just as good. I talk to her on the phone a lot, and she goes on about the interesting sociology of college life and how people are desperately trying to find their identities and fit in with their peers and how she wishes she could have a control group, blahblahblah blah blah. It's always good to hear her voice though, and she's gotten older now, more mature, so it's almost like I have a parent to talk to, y'know?

Uh, not that I can't talk to mine. We've gotten closer, worked through some things. I still haven't told them what I am, though--I mean, I know for a fact they'd still love and accept me because of the whole deal with Freak Show and the reality gauntlet, but I can't see them just sitting there while I go out to fight.

That'd go SO well: _"Bye, mom and dad! Off to hunt ghosts!"_

_"Young man, you go right back to your room! You have a test in the morning!"_

_"But mom--!"_

_"No buts--you heard your mother." _

_"But dad, I have to go out or else Skulker is going to--"_

_"Daniel Fenton, first of all, we are not going to let you go out patrolling for ghosts without proper backup--it's too dangerous, and we couldn't stand to see our little boy hurt. Second of all, your grades are just as important as your superheroing."_

_"But--"_

_"Bed, mister!" _

I really don't want to get grounded for superheroing. It's hard enough as it is, what with getting knocked unconscious in the middle of hanging out at the mall with your friends, y'know?

---

"Danny, WAKE UP! Oh, forget this, Tuck, grab his legs, I've got his arms, we've got to get him into a store. "

"What good's that gonna do? We can't carry him fast enough, and what about all these people? Maybe we should--"

"Look, he can't save anybody if he's dead. We've got to get him some cover and try to get him awake. Now, grab his legs."

"Yes, ma'am," was spat out bitterly.

"Tucker, now is not the time to--"

"I think it's the perfect time--last time when you said we should take that amulet, it nearly killed him--"

"How was I supposed to know it was cursed? Danny said if something happened to him, it was my judgment call to make--"

The two teens were thrown to the floor as a massive explosion rocked the Amity Park Mall. There were screams all over the place, as the shopping center, which was already in a state of utter panic, became like an anthill stirred up with a stick. People stampeded, children cried for their mothers, and standing over near the caved-in roof, as the dust cleared away, there was a large armored ghost with flaming green hair.

"--Okay, yeah, definitely not the time for arguing," Tuck babbled, grabbing Danny's legs, and Sam grabbed his arms as they hoisted his limp body as best as they could.

"First floor, sporting goods, temporary refuge from evil ghost hybrids, _ding_," Sam said as they maneuvered him into the store, hoping Skulker hadn't spotted them. That hope was stretched thin, like wire, in the fashion that what little hope they usually had was--it was almost painful to hold on to.

Tucker grabbed a baseball bat, not that it could do much, as Sam knelt with Danny's head in her lap, pushing his hair out of his face and trying to coax him awake. "Come on, Danny, wake up. Please."

"Are his pupils dilated? He might have another concussion..."

"Lemme check. No. We're good there."

Tucker pulled out his PDA, the bat still in his other hand. "My police scanner's picking up that they're calling in the big guns. If he doesn't wake up and end this quick, then we're gonna have to let them handle it or else they'll try to take Danny down, too."

"But last time that one guy died..."

"I hate to say it, but better them than Danny."

"N-No. No, it isn't," a weak voice rasped out from the floor, and it was followed by a groan as Danny tried to sit up. He fell back down into Sam's lap, and looked up at her, a plaintive look on his face. "Help?"

"I've got you," Sam said, helping him to a sit, and fussing over him in a way she rarely did over anyone else. "Are you okay? Anything broken?"

"Just my pride. Ow. Maybe my skull. Took a hard knock to the head when he slammed me into the wall, but I've had worse." He had.

"Your pupils are fine, so it's minor, thank God."

"Danny, they're calling in--" Tucker started to say.

"I know, I heard you." Danny rubbed his head and tried to get his eyes to start focusing again. "Can you do anything about disabling Technus?"

"Sorry, dude, I've been trying, but I'm completely locked out. It'd take me days to crack this code."

Danny winced and started using a rack to help himself to his feet. "Guess I'll have to do this the--_oof_--the old-fashioned violent way."

Neither of them told him not to go. They knew from experience that he wouldn't listen. Neither of them told him he was in no condition to fight. They knew he didn't care.

He got back up again--That's what heroes did, right? Get back up again?--and went ghost, stumbling a little.

"Get as many people out of here as you can. We're probably going to wind up wrecking the whole place. And I don't want...you know, Norcross Towers happening again."

"Got it," Tucker said, pale-faced and looking surprised that Danny had said the NT combo.

"Danny--" Sam started to say, but Danny had already lifted off the ground and flown out into the mall proper.

_No time for that, Sam, and this isn't the fight where we need to have that talk,_ he thought.

...He hoped.

The talk was the "What if you die?" talk, to be specific. They'd held off on having it, as if that would act as some sort of ward, as if it would guarantee that he'd always come back.

Even though it just got harder and harder to do that.

Skulker was blasting away at the stores, sending shattered glass in all directions. Mannequins were dismembered and beheaded, their parts rolling onto the floors like bizarre and morbid modern art.

"Hey, Skulker!"

He really had learned a lot from comics.

_Unwritten Superhero-heroing Rule Number One: If civilians are in danger, get the enemy's attention all on you._

"Looking for me?"

The ghost--or was it ghosts now?--turned, a walking, talking piece of a future Danny hoped he would never had to see.

The presence of the hybrid unnerved him.

"There you are. For a moment, I was starting to wonder if you'd become a coward during all that time I was away--"

"--And who wouldn't be a coward!" declared another voice, and from the green circular viewscreen on Skulker's wrist, the pixelated face of Technus grinned out. "When faced with the greatest hunter in the Ghost Zone, powered by, I, Technus, the greatest--"

"Would you be silent, you infernal fool? Or I'll _make_ you be quiet," Skulker rumbled, looking as if the sheer annoyance caused by their little team-up made it so the power was barely worth it.

Something useable there, Danny knew.

Skulker looked back up. "As I was saying, I'll have you for my--"

"--Rug, mounted on your wall, in your trophy case, yeah, yeah, I get it," Danny said, blasting him with ecto into some of the decorative trees, and a bench. Skulker's body shredded right through them. "I'm sure you could hire somebody to come up with new material--the Ghost Writer out of Walker's prison yet or does he still have another _thousand_ years to go?"

Skulker raised his arm and pointed his fist, and damn it all, Danny thought as he tried to concentrate on going intangible, he just didn't have enough juice left for this.

"You want to know if I've come up with anything new, whelp? In a word? Yes," Skulker said, and a there was a click and a _fwoosh_ as a net shot out of a little launcher and...didn't go through Danny like it was supposed to when he phased.

Fantastic.

It wrapped around him instead, though oddly enough, it wasn't very heavy.

And extremely easy to break.

He pushed his arms out and broke right through it, in fact.

"That's it?" he asked, incredulous, as he looked at the bits of broken net.

Skulker only grinned and there was a sinking feeling in Danny's stomach.

"When you cast me into the void at the Black Bridge in the Ghost Zone--"

"--yeah, I was kinda wondering how you weaseled your way out of _that_ one--"

"--I found quite a few interesting creatures living in the miasma there. Very interesting creatures. One, in particular, secrets a spectacular ectoplasmic toxin, especially when it comes in contact with the face--"

_Whuh oh._

As he sat on the floor, Danny felt the skin of his face starting to burn--the only place the net had touched him, thanks to his body suit, but even that small area of contact felt like it was heating up, like a particularly embarassed blush, then hotter, and hotter…

"--which I coated that net in. It should be kicking in right about..._now_."

Danny let out a cry of frustration and blasted Skulker again, knocking him deeper into the floor and cracking the tiles around him.

His face was starting to burn.

...Oh God, it was on fire. It felt like the skin of his face was _on fire_.

Danny couldn't stop the scream building up in his throat like an air raid siren, slow and low and then deafeningly loud. Tears would have welled up and spilled out of his eyes if he could cry or sweat in his ghost state, and he arched his back in the air, starting to claw instinctively at his eyes and cheeks. It felt like there were things burrowing through his skin, boring holes through his face with _fire_, as if--as if they were just going to pull the skin of it right off of his skull.

Forgetting the fight entirely, he flew in the direction he last remembered the fountains being in.

There was a sharp pain in his side and the wind was knocked out of him as Skulker slammed into him and sent him hurtling through a shop window.

_Hurts...too much...oh god, can't think. Can't--_

He could barely concentrate enough to stay ghosted out.

Trying to lift himself off of the broken glass crunching and crackling under him, stained green as he bled through the tears and rips in his suit, he attempted to blink his blurring vision clear, and then took to the air again, speeding out through the hole he made. For a moment, he thought he was in the clear, but then he felt a strong hand grab onto his ankle with a death-grip and then heard Skulker laugh as he used the momentum of Danny's flight to swing him around in a hammer throw and send him into a wall.

Danny blacked out for a moment and woke to the pain again, woke to see Skulker towering over him.

"This is it? A little pain and you fold this easily? Pathetic. Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking you worthy of being my prey for all these years."

"Pathetic half-human!" chimed up Technus.

"I already said that, you nuisance!" Skulker growled.

_Unwritten Superhero-heroing Rule Number Two: If you're fighting two enemies that don't get along, try to turn them against each other._

"You going to keep letting him talk to you like that?" Danny chimed up weakly, to Technus. "Boss you around all the time? It may be his body, but it seems like he's forgotten who's giving it power."

"Hey, come to think of it--"

Skulker looked at the screen on his wrist. "Don't listen to him, you fool, he's just trying to turn us against one another--" Skulker looked back to find Danny gone.

For lack of a better description, the ghost hunter _facepalmed_.

"--as a distraction."

From behind him there was a sound like a freight train full of damned souls as Danny _SCREAMED_, his ghostly wail slamming Skulker into the wall and crumbling it around him, leaving a heap of ghost and concrete and crumbled plaster where he'd just been standing.

After a moment, Danny was human again. Thank goodness for Sam and Tucker; it seemed like they'd cleared the place out so no one was there to see him change back. He bolted for the fountains, dunking his whole upper body in and scrubbing at his face with his knuckles.

When he finally heaved his upper body up onto the tiled barrier around the fountain, gasping for air, tears streaming down his burning face unbidden, a good deal of the pain had subsided.

Not that it didn't still hurt like the dickens, but the actual burning away at his skin had stopped, and now there were only the burns and tingling the poison had already caused left. And the sting of the chlorine and tears on said burns. Oh, _ow_.

"Oh. Oh man," he gasped, because this had hurt, this had hurt really bad, and it'd been really close for a second, and now his shirt was soggy and dripping. "Oh man."

Now to get the heck out of dodge, find where his bookbag had landed in the rubble, grab his thermos--

Danny turned and started to stand wobbily and was greeted by a blast full on to the chest with ecto. He slammed into the barrier, and then the actual metal piping of the fountain and then the next barrier, skidding to a stop near the entrance of a department store, now in a whole _world_ of hurt.

He tried to get up several times, only to collapse weakly back to the floor, and when Skulker came over and kicked him in the side, hard, turning him over, all he could do was curl up in pain and try to catch his breath.

"Look at you. So weak in this form, so easy to take down--especially when I don't have to run off every ten minutes to look up information on Purpleback Gorillas. It's a wonder you ever defeated me at all, child."

"Yeah, yeah, enough with the boasting. Just get on with it already."

Because he was toast. With butter. He knew it.

Terror made his heart flutter in his chest, his pulse pound in his ears. He could barely move, let alone fight.

_Oh my God, I never got to get drunk. Not even once,_ was, ironically enough, his thought at that moment.

_...At least I'm not going to die a virgin, though. That's good._

Sam had taken care of that when they had both turned seventeen. Rather spectacularly.

"It's time to end the hunt, ghost-child. I must say, you've given me three very entertaining--if frustrating--years."

A knife clacked and clinked in Skulker's wrist-gauntlet and slid into place with a _chink_, as he raised his arm and pointed at at Danny's chest.

_Game over. No bonus lives._

There were many things said about people waiting for death with open eyes, and how it was a brave thing to do, but at that point, Danny didn't care much about being brave. Bravery was all well and good when he still had strength to fight, when he still had someone to protect, but bravery wouldn't save him, and he really didn't want to see the knife that killed him coming at him.

He didn't want to have to look at Skulker and Technus--Techulker? Skulktech? Skechnus?--as he died either. Of all the last sights to see in the world before he passed on. If he even passed on at all. Who knew what would happen next to Danny, given what he was.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

_Maybe it's better this way,_ said a treacherous little voice in the back of his head. _You won't be able to screw up again. It'll make up for you screwing up._ Justice. Some twisted form of justice, the universe avenging someone that didn't deserve to die.

_Okay. Okay, pull up a good mental picture to go out with._

_Sam. _

_...Sam **naked**._

_There we go_.

"So long, nuisance!" chimed up Technus.

Danny waited, holding his breath.

But instead of feeling something spiking through him, the ground shook as something--some horrible _thing_--roared, with a sound like metal scraping on granite. Danny opened his blurred and still-tearing eyes to see Skulker turning around and looking mildly horrified as a looming creature that hadn't even been there just a moment before hurled a bench into the escalator, tearing it clean away from the upper level of the mall.

It was unlike anything Danny had ever seen--and he'd seen the width and breadth of Weird. It had legs like a bear--more like haunches, and four arms, one set of which was smaller than the other. It's mouth was huge, and every time it screamed, a blue light poured out over its sharp teeth.

The way it moved was unbelievable. A bit of light and blurring and suddenly it'd be somewhere else.

One second it was over near Veronica's Secret and the next it was looming over the both of them.

"...Today is just not my day. I'm going to get _double_-dead?" Danny muttered to himself, his voice cracking, as the thing roared at them.

Skulker moved to attack, but it swept him up in one of its furry hands, and stared down at Danny, burned and battered on the mall floor.

"Stay--stay away from me!"

Yeah, that'd totally work.

Surprisingly enough, it _did_. There was an interminable moment, where it stared down at him, and it was as if something strange passed between them, some wordless...thing.

It was scared. Everything was different. It had gotten lost and was far from home.

The thing was, Danny had no idea how he _knew_ all that, and it scared him.

Suddenly, it turned and galloped away, smashing things and roaring as it went.

Whatever it was, it sure didn't seem to like the mall.

"Not that I'm not _grateful_," he said, pretty much to himself, struggling to sit up. "But why didn't it attack me?"

It disappeared around a corner and there was a crash as it broke through one of the emergency exits, knocking the doors clean off the hinges.

Danny managed to drag himself to his feet, his head feeling like it was filled with cotton and wobbling on his neck, and stumbles as quickly as he could over to the mangled food court tables, phasing a hand into the pile of shattered roofing, and feeling around until he managed to snag his bookbag and the the thermos within. He made his way to the door, just as the fire alarms went off from all the smoke that was billowing up from random fires.

By the time he got there, the creature carrying Skulktech was near the treeline of a nearby field.

Then there was a flash and it was gone.

Too weird. Even for him. It was black and white, and in a way...it reminded Danny of something. The coloring of the thing made him think of...what did it make him think of?

In any case, he was left standing there in the afternoon sunlight, as people bustled away from the mall and screamed, and sirens approached and lights flashed as firemen and ambulances and the police arrived.

Then came the white van. The government-issued white van. It was a different team than last time that poured out--Danny supposed that the other ghost-hunting team quit after one of their men was killed by the White Rider.

Which...he kind of still felt guilty for, not being able to save the guy. They had just been doing their job, even if they'd come after him, and unlike the Guys in White, who'd been decommissioned after an incident with Vlad, they still treated him like he was semi-human.

_("Son, listen to me. We understand that you're trying to do good here, but it isn't your place and the damage you could do. You're a walking WMD. Norcross Towers was bad enough--you want something like that to happen again? We're just trying to keep all this crazy stuff controlled--and unfortunately that means controlling **you**.")_

Semi-human. Something to be controlled, a threat to society.

As he looked at the damage done to the mall, a good deal of it the result of his ghostly wail, Danny wondered if maybe they were right.

He was getting tired of feeling guilty, he was getting tired of accidentally grinding buildings into rubble, and he was started to wonder if...if maybe he _should_ just leave all of it up to the Guys in White. Maybe the city would be better off. He knew that _he_ certainly would be better off.

No more aches and pains and lies to his family, no more looks of disappointment from Mr. Lancer (who was teaching twelfth grade now--it was like Danny couldn't _escape_ him) when he didn't get his work handed in, no more fear, no more paranoia.

Above all else: no more _screw-ups_.

Maybe it was time for Danny Phantom to give it a rest.

Danny was broken out of his reverie by the police shoving everyone back.

Four men poured out of the van, in brown jumpsuits. They had the weirdest looking backpacks Danny had ever seen--in fact, it looked like they had little nuclear reactors strapped to their backs or something. Their equipment was clunky and complex-looking.

One of them, a thinner man wearing glasses, was waving around a handheld bit of ghost tech with little arms on it that waved around like a bug's antenna.

"...Fascinating."

"What're you picking up, Spengs? The sooner we clean this joint out, the sooner we can get back to the hotel."

"I'm getting residual readings from a Class VI, and more distinct readings from Class VII free-floater. Close." He waved the device around more, vaguely in Danny's direction. "Very close."

A red-headed kid next to Danny started and shot him a suspicious glance, and Danny backed away.

A brown-haired, somewhat stockier man paled slightly, exclaiming, "Tesla's ghost! Tell me we're not dealing with another Gozer." He pulled out his own device, the little arms waving every time he pointed it in Danny's general direction. "Oh wow, the readings are through the roof--how is this city still standing? The pull of this much power on the dimensional fabric..."

_...That's my cue for an exit._

The fourth man, an African-American, was waving his arms and coaxing the terrified spectators to leave.

"Clear the area! Get these people outta' here!" he yelled to the police, who started urging people to leave entirely instead of just holding them back.

Danny stepped backward, turning on his heal and pushing through the crowd, as the four started to close in on him. It didn't not help that he was more wobbling than walking, and that his face felt like a jellyfish had been stuck on it.

He just wanted to take a nice, long painless nap somewhere, worry about Skulktech later, and maybe have a sandwich.

Yes, a sandwich would be--

A hand grabbed his arm and he turned to bat the person away or punch them in the face...and then sighed in relief when he saw it was Tucker.

"You okay, man?"

"Yeah, but the new guys the feds sent in have these little machines--I think they pick up on ecto," Danny said, stumbling, and before he had time to protest, Tucker had Danny's arm draped over his shoulders and was supporting him as he walked. He felt someone else grab his other arm and do the same, and saw Sam at his other side. "Danny! Your face!"

"Skulker had some new toys. I'll be okay," he said raspily, as they lifted him up, practically up on his feet. They were carrying most of his weight.

He finally let himself draw in a deep breath and then let it out, finally relaxing, feeling the after-fight exhaustion seep in as the adrenaline rush died down.

"My place is closest," Sam said, as the two motored him along, away from the crowd and the police and the flashing lights, away from the ghost hunters, keeping him from falling over--keeping him steady, like they always did.

"Have I mentioned recently that I have the two best friends in the entire universe?" Danny muttered quietly, but sincerely, his voice hoarse and low. "Because I do."

The grins on their faces were the reward for all his many hurts--and so was the fact they were still there to grin.

Then he added, "I really want a sandwich. Can we stop at Substation?"

---

"--Yes, Mrs. Fenton. Yes, he's a little hurt--no, no--it's okay, it's okay, calm down. The paramedics triaged him and said it didn't look serious, but we left before they could give him first aid--it was getting pretty dangerous. He's okay, though--he got hurt by some falling plaster, and got burned by the ghost--it was shooting this stuff out at the crowd--but he's okay. He's really tired, though.

My dad called in our family doctor to patch him up--do you think you could drive over and get him--actually, wait, he's asking if he can sleep here tonight, and if you can get him in the morning--we're all pretty much exhausted and we kind of...want to stick together for now. It was pretty intense.

Yeah. Oh, I'm fine, don't worry-- so's Tucker. You want to talk to him? Okay, here he is."

The phone was handed over.

"Hi mom."

A beat.

"Mom, please don't cry. Look--yeah, I know, I know, third time this month--guess I'm just always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck, I guess. No no, I'm okay. Seriously.

I'm _okay_, mom, you can stop worrying. After I got knocked around, that ghost-kid showed up and we got out okay.

...Yeah. I know, I know, tear him apart molecule by molecule. But seriously, I'm okay. Is it okay if I crash here tonight, though? I know you're worried, but I'm exhausted and it kind of hurts to move around too much.

Uh huh. Uh huh. I promise. I love you too, mom. I'm okay. Seriously. Tell dad I love him too. Okay. See ya' in the morning. Night, mom."

Another pause. "Okay, how about you hang up first, okay? Okay."

Danny finally hung up Sam's phone, handing it back to her blindly with a bandaged hand.

"The parental units said you both can raid the fridge all you want, as usual, and to ask Encarnación if there's anything you need. And Danny, if you need Doctor Thomas again, dad said just tell him and he'll call," Sam said, plopping down exhaustedly on the couch near Danny's head, where she'd been sitting before she got up to get the phone. Danny scooted up, somewhat painfully and plopped his mussy-haired head in her lap.

Tucker was sprawled, exhausted, in a nearby cushy leather easy-chair, his legs over the arm of it.

Not that Danny could see it, as he had a washcloth soaked in ice water on his face. Sam took it and wet it again in the little bowl of ice water on the side-table next to them, squeezed it out, and put it back on his face. She started petting his hair again.

"Okay, so run that by us again?" Tucker asked. "He had you on the ground, this...thing shows up--"

"--and it just grabbed him and dragged him off."

"Just...outta nowhere?" Tuck said.

"Out of nowhere. It appeared, broke the mall some--it seemed almost like...almost it was angry at the building itself or something--grabbed Skulker, and broke out through the door. I thought it was going to get me too, but I just yelled at it, and it actually...listened." It had seemed scared somehow. Confused. "It left me alone and just busted out of the building."

That part unnerved him more than anything else.

"We saw it disappear near the trees," said Sam.

"Back to whence it came," Danny said, with a slight overdramatic flourish of his bandaged hand.

"Weird," Tucker said after a moment of consideration. "Uh, even more than usual."

"Yeah, I know," Danny said, "but I'm glad it happened. Better than the alternative."

There was silence in the study.

Danny lifted the cloth off of his eyes.

"...I just killed the post-fight inquisitive teamwork mood, didn't I."

"Killed it dead," Sam said, her voice flat, and slightly worried-sounding. "Pun intended."

Tucker sighed. "We're just worried about you, Danny. Man, it seems like every other fight you're getting busted up. It didn't used to be this bad."

"Tell me about it," Danny said, "but you know I can't just--"

"--stop fighting. We know," Sam cut in. "We still _worry_. Especially since it's gotten to the point where they're all resistant to your parents' ghost tech. There's not much we can do anymore, other than clear out civilians, throw in the occasional distraction, and drag you home afterwards."

"That you do all that means more to me than you know," Danny said solemnly. Closing his eyes tighter under the wash-cloth, he added, "Especially the clearing out civilians part."

"Danny--" they both started to say.

"I know, I know, I've got to stop beating myself up about it." He sighed. "I just..." He broke off into another sigh and shut up.

_I just screwed up big time, and someone else suffered for it. How do I let something like that go?_

"Look, we should all crash," Tucker suggested. "We're all exhausted and Danny, you look like crap."

"Gee. Thanks, Tuck." But Danny was smiling just a little under the washcloth.

"Don't mention it." Tucker grinned back. Danny couldn't see it, but he could hear it in his voice.

They made it all worth it, Danny thought. They made everything worth it.

They also made him feel guilty that he'd laid there and given up and waited for Skulktech to kill him.

Sometimes, Danny wondered how one person could feel so much guilt and not explode.

---

Sleeping was difficult, what with every muscle and bone in Danny's body aching.

But Sam was curled up next to him on his guest bed, the one he slept in--or at least made appearances that he slept in--every time he slept over Sam's house (usually, he was up in her bed, if they could sneak it).

It was comfortable. As comfortable as it could be.

He still hadn't had the "If I die..." talk yet, even though, if today had been any evidence, he'd have to have it soon.

Real soon.

Squeezing her closer, and bringing the covers up to bundle them around her more, he looked up at the ceiling, face still burning in the dark.

He didn't know how he was going to tell her. He didn't know how to say, "They're getting stronger and every fight I think I'm going to die," And sometimes he almost _wanted_ to, "and if I do, I want you to know..."

_I want you to know...what?_

He didn't know how to say it or what to say. So he didn't, for now.

For now he just looked at her, curled there even though her parents would kill them both if they found out about it, breathing softly. Still breathing after many times where she almost wasn't during the last three years.

Softly, he pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, without waking her up, and as he drifted off to sleep watching her, he went over the fight again in his head, worrying over Skulker and Technus joining together--that was too close to a future he wanted to avoid--wondering once more what that strange creature was, and what it's coloring reminded him of.

He had to figure this out, just like he had to figure out every other mystery that popped up, before it was too late.

Right before he dropped off, he thought, incoherently:

_Panda...Big panda..._.

He forgot it by the morning.

---

There's fear, when you're a superhero.

But there's joy, too.

There's nothing like the rush you get when you realize you can fly for the first time, by the way. Nothing like it in the world.

Well, there's maybe a few things thing like it--when you realize with a rush that your best friend is Olsen James, Stupendous Man's always-loyal buddy, and when you figure out who your Jane Mary is.

_("Okay, I've been saving this one up--I think you'll appreciate it. Ahem._

_'Face it, tiger. You just hit the jackpot.'"_

_"Sam?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"You're awesome.")_

The changes are hard, though. The big changes are, surprisingly enough, easiest to swallow--they just send you in a new direction, but that's life isn't it? Everything's always changing.

It's the small ones that really bug you--the ones that take the familiarity in your life away, so you have no place to hide, no refuge from the complete and utter Crazy.

Like, for instance, the one thing that bugs me the most? That really really freaks me out? You know how when your eyes are closed, when you're sleeping or unconscious, or just resting your eyes, everything is black? It's just black. Maybe you get funny afterimages on your retinas, but that's it.

Ever since the accident three years ago, when I close my eyes, when I'm losing consciousness, or falling asleep, or just closing my eyes and blinking, I see _green._

And I think I might be going crazy, that's really what all of this is about. I think I might be genuinely going nuts after three years of this, and that's what has me thinking maybe I need to step down.

Because lately, some nights, when I'm staring into that green, half asleep and half-awake (is it always going to be halves with me?) it seems like--I know this sounds completely bonkers--but...

There's this—this glowing _arrow._ And bright almond-shaped eyes. Too bright.

...And it seems like something is staring _back._


	3. Chapter 2 The NightTide

Thanks for all the reviews, folks! I was actually surprised, because I didn't really expect very many. It's kind of a niche fandom that I'm drawing readers from. There are plenty that go "Yay! Avatar!" and plenty that go "Yay! Danny Phantom!" And plenty that go "Yay! Avatar and Danny Phantom!" but few that go "Yay! Avatar and Danny Phantom! OMFG I wanna see them mashed together!"

**Pieling:** What I figured with the POV is that Danny's speech is kinda like his little monologues in the show. Quite often, he talks to himself, usually in a funny fashion, giving a bit of exposition and personality, too. So the interspersed 1st person bits sort of tie all the narrative--including flashback narrative, since the past is so important to all these characters--together. If Danny were a normal comic, all those 1st person bits would be his thought bubbles and narrative boxes.

**FantomoDrako: **I decided to have Danny and the gang at seventeen because of the way the plot in his show works. Going from episode to episode, there really isn't any plot, unless it's a two-parter, like the movies. Avatar, on the other hand is an episodic show with lots of continuity. Instead of episodes, we're seeing a trail across the Four Nations as they travel. Giving Danny those years in between the end of the show and beginning of the story lets me make it feel as if he's been grabbed from his own episodic trail through his own adventures, and also helps me darken the tone of Danny's side of the story, to match Avatar's tone. Danny has, at this point, made his first huge mistakes (something Aang already did with running away from the temple), seen someone die (again, the Avatar folks see death and war all the time) and lets me set up for character conflict and growth (which are already set up in Avatar).

It's meant to put them at a more level ground for dealing with each other, once the groups meet, and instead of Danny just randomly being thrown another world's war and yet another doomsday conflict, he's getting over his own issues AS he's getting thrown into all this, which makes for more interesting characterization. It's not so much the ages that are important, as what happened in those missing years, which gives his side of the story a little mystery. I'm going to be giving bits and pieces about Norcross Towers and what happened there, and see if you readers can figure it out before he reveals it himself.

Also, you're pretty much right about the green. What he's seeing is his eyes glowing slightly under his eyelids, because whether he likes it or not, the ghost is a huge part of himself. He doesn't realize it, but when at rest, when he's most relaxed and the shields in his head are down, when he's not worried about looking normal, when he's angry, when he's most himself, his eye color is not blue.

**RasenganFin: **Danny is not an Avatar, but he IS his world's spiritual guardian. Even if it was an accident (or was it? Really?) An outside force that knows this about them both is trying to get them wondering about who they're seeing in their dreams and searching for each other.

**Tevagirl 16: **Thanks! The way I see it, Danny IS just another 17 year old...that just happens to have superpowers. And expect more cliffies. The next DP chapter's going to have a big one!

**Egyptian Ghost Kitty**: Sorry it took so long to read--I get a little verbose. And the bear is indeed the Hei Bai from Avatar, the forest spirit--which was why it was so upset at the mall. Mini-malls are pretty much a bastion of industrial growth and destruction of the environment.

---

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any other fictional work referred to in this story. Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, and others do. The characters and whatnot being used are only being used for fun and not profit.

---

**The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.**

---

**Dead Faces**

**By Psychicsaphie**

**Episode Two - The Night-Tide**

---

"Those with the greatest awareness have the greatest nightmares."

--Mahatma Gandhi

---

It's never an accident.

Gyatso always told me that important things don't happen because of accidents, and that they don't happen because of fate, either. He said:

_("Fate is an illusion, created by man's desire to avoid making choices. Life is not so simple that the future is handed to us--we make our own future, Aang. What we call fate is only the world trying to guide us. Sometimes it will guide us true and sometimes it will not. Fortunately, we can choose to follow or take--or make--a new path.")_

He always said the important things happen because of choices. Because of them--because of what people wanted.

_("The lemurs are not thrown from the trees for annoying the bison by accident, Aang, but because they chose to go up into the trees and annoy the bison in the first place)._

...Actually, I think that was also a warning for me to stop climbing up in the trees and annoying the head monks from above, too. They were really grouchy. (Besides, Gyatso didn't want to be left out of the fun.)

After the monks told me I was the Avatar, I started to think that maybe Monk Gyatso'd had one too many fruit pies and gone funny in the head, because I never chose to be the Avatar. How could I? And that was something important, wasn't?

It wasn't an accident, it wasn't a choice, so it had to be fate.

But after my time with Guru Pahtik, I finally understood.

It was a choice. It was more than one choice--it was a whole lot of them.

I could turn my back on the world and run like last time or I could accept who and what I am, and do what I had to do.

Only by accepting that I am the Avatar could I really be the Avatar.

That was the easy choice, though.

The other choices I had to make, I didn't want to.

---

"This is the last chakra, isn't it."

"Once you open this chakra, you will be able to go in and out of the Avatar State at will, and when you are in the Avatar State, you will have complete control and awareness of all your actions."

"Let's do this."

"The thought chakra is located at the crown of the head. It deals with pure cosmic energy, and is blocked by earthly attachment.

Meditate on what attaches you to this world."

She was beautiful.

"Now let all of those attachments go; let them flow down the river...forgotten..."

---

I couldn't.

---

"Why would I choose "cosmic energy" over Katara? How could it be a bad thing that I feel an attachment to her? Three chakras ago, that was a good thing!"

---

She's the most beautiful thing in the whole world, and I just...

I just couldn't let her go.

But if that was the only way we could walk out of the cave under Ba Sing Se, surrounded by Azula and Zuko and the Dai Li, if that was the only way I could save the Earth Kingdom...

If that was the only way I could save her...

Then that's what I had to do.

---

"I'm sorry, Katara."

---

It was a choice.

If I'd just made that choice sooner maybe I wouldn't have failed.

By the way: lightning really, really hurts.

---

"Cold."

There were vague shapes around him, the rush of the air.

The air was cold. It hadn't been cold in a very long time, because Aang almost unconsciously made the air warmer around him wherever he went, but he was too weak to do that now. While Appa's fur kept his back warm, he felt the coolness of the wind in a way he hadn't in a long time.

For once, the wind was his enemy.

The stars, on the other hand, weren't. One hundred years later and they were still the same.

In another hundred years, when the Fire Nation ruled the whole world, they'd still be the same.

He realized Katara probably hadn't heard him the first time, as his voice hadn't even been a whisper. It'd barely been more than him just moving his lips.

"Katara," he whispered. "Cold."

Next to him, Katara started at the sound of his voice, and her own voice was forceful, if a little panicked, she leaned over and said, "Appa, we need to land."

There was that slight pull of gravity, the feeling of his stomach in his throat as Appa started his descent, gentle and slower than usual.

Thanks, buddy.

Aang heard another voice, almost lost on the wind, soft with concern, much softer than it usually was.

"What is it, Katara--is he okay?"

"He's cold. We need to set down and make a fire, and I need some water to heal--" Her voice was slightly choked. "--to heal what I can."

"We should be far enough from Ba Sing Se by now," Sokka said, his voice still strangely soft. "You just worry about healing him. We don't have time to set up camp though--we need to warn dad."

Aang shivered, his teeth chattering. It didn't help that every nerve in his body still jangled and buzzed like he had a swarm of scorpion bees under his skin.

"Here, take this," came another soft voice and a moment later something was handed to Sokka and then Katara and he was bundled in the outer robes of the Earth King.

"Hang in there, Twinkletoes."

The heavens blurred.

---

"Life is change." That was another thing Monk Gyatso said.

"Even the stone can be caught up in the flow of the river and swept away, but the reed bends."

I have to be the reed.

Even if all I really want to do is jump in and play in the river.

I have to change, and adapt, and grow, if I'm going to survive. Those who never change, who follow the same broken path--in the end, they can't survive...

---

Miles and miles away, a young woman was contemplating her destiny.

Azula believed in destiny. Some people did not, she knew. Some clawed their way to the top, like Long Feng, some believed they could change their future, when they were just doomed to ridiculous failure.

No, fate guided all their hands, and fate smiled on the Fire Nation. It was their right to rule, as it always had been.

It was her right to rule. Hers alone--her brother was weak.

Their father--her father knew that, of course. This was why, as she unfurled the scrolls that had been delivered by the messenger and read them, she smiled.

One was for keeping, one was not. The one that was meant to be destroyed, she memorized, then held it over her hand and burned it into a fine, flaky ash, the wax of the Fire Lord's seal melting and sizzling.

"Do we have new orders, Azula?" asked Ty Lee, from where she was doing a headstand, arching her back so that her slippered feet pressed against the back of her own head. She knew better than to ask anything more personal about the letter Azula had burned.

"In fact, we do, Ty Lee," Azula said, sounding pleased. "After affairs are managed here and the governors arrive, we're to escort the prisoners to the coast. Along the way, and after, our search for the Avatar continues--provided he survived."

Which was doubtful, but still possible.

"As long as it doesn't consist of shoveling bear poop, I'm in," said Mai, her voice deadpan and so dry that sand should have leaked from the corners of her mouth. She was sitting in what had been Bosco's old chair, slumped, looking utterly bored.

"We will be staying here in the Earth Kingdom for the duration of the invasion. In between trying to confirm the Avatar's death, we will be taking care of any problems Fire Nation forces may face while bringing order to the Earth Kingdom."

"Ooh, I'm glad we'll be able to start moving again!" Ty Lee said happily, taking a few steps forward on her hands. "I'm not used to being in one place so long."

"Do either of you know where Zuzu is, by any chance? I have a message to give to him." She couldn't be bothered to find him herself. "I do hope he isn't talking to our...guest in the cells."

"He's out on the balcony," said Mai. A moment later, she blushed crimson, and added quickly, "I saw him earlier, passing by."

The quick addition did nothing to restrain Ty Lee's smirk.

"Very well." Gracefully, Azula pushed herself up from her throne, scroll in hand, and walked out of the room.

It took only a moment for Ty Lee's voice to chime up in sing-song:

"Mai and Zu-ko on the bal-cony"

"Shut up."

---

Zuko was standing on the balcony, looking out on the city below and, for lack of a better word, brooding. The Exiled Prince of the Fire Nation was good at brooding--world-class even, and it was a talent he had cultivated all on his own. Neither his mother or father were brooders (his father never worried or thought about whether or not his actions were right--he just acted) and his uncle certainly wasn't one.

His uncle.

His uncle was why he was brooding at the moment, among countless other reasons.

Azula was right, wasn't she? Iroh had betrayed him. All this time, he'd only been worried about the stupid tea-shop, and fitting in, in the city. He'd been worrying about his own happiness.

Then, when Zuko had his chance, when he was fighting on the right side for once, he'd swooped in and attacked him, to hold him back from...

He'd held him back from a horrible enemy, he wanted to think. A horrible enemy, an obstacle, a coward that had hidden for a hundred years, a--

_(Krackachoom! Azula's lightning struck true, as he stood there in the caverns under Ba Sing Se he had a flash from when they were young, when she'd used Firebending to strike down graceful flametails in flight, innocent birds twittering as they flitted from tree to tree._

_Water had swept in from behind, and when Zuko found his footing again, the Waterbender was kneeling there, holding the Avatar's limp and battered body, tears pouring down her face)._

A child.

The Avatar was to be captured and taken back to the Fire Nation--back home. But he wouldn't have been treated cruelly. Yes, he'd have been imprisoned in the palace, but with decent quarters and regular meals.

He would have been treated as an...honored guest of the Fire Nation.

The thought didn't stop the mental image, a negative burned onto his retinas of the Avatar's face twisting in shock and pain as he twitched, and the Water-peasant's tears as she held what Zuko could only assume was his corpse. She had been kind to him, offered to heal him, for what reason Zuko still couldn't discern--trickery and guile? Gaining his trust simply to prevent him from attacking?

But he had to admit, never, in any of his encounters with the Avatar and his friends, had the Waterbender's face hidden a thing. Rage, defiance, pain, concern--all of those emotions were there plain to see.

It was hard to doubt her sincerity when he remembered the look on her face as she held the Avatar's mangled body, the utter despair etched onto her face like it was glass--shattered.

_("Before the war started, I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble. He was one of the best friends I ever had...And he was from the Fire Nation, just like you. If we knew each other back then, do you think we could've been friends too?")_

No. He had to push such thoughts aside.

_The Avatar was a fool_, Zuko coached himself._ If he had just come along willingly, this wouldn't have happened. He would still be alive and my honor would be restored._

Yes, he had simply been a fool and it had cost him his life, as Azula was just as deadly as ever, a snake in the grass, cunning and foul. But through her lay his salvation if he were to tread carefully enough.

_And uncle is a traitor. Fighting side by side with them, worrying only for his own happiness. What about my destiny? He told me I needed to seek my own, but he seemed perfectly content for me to stay Li the Tea-boy._

If he had the chance, if the opportunity came, Zuko wasn't sure whether or not he would let his uncle escape. If he didn't or if the opportunity arose, at the very least, he knew the old man would be treated fine. Confined to the palace perhaps, but his father wouldn't do more than that, certainly.

Something would come up. The decision would be taken out of his hands, he was sure.

Something always came up.

"Why so melancholy, Zuzu?" came a voice behind him and he jumped, angry at himself for delving so deep into his thoughts that he had let his guard down--especially to her. "This is a time of celebration for our people."

"Don't call me--" he started, about to snap at her for using his old nickname, but he sighed. Snapping at her wouldn't do, not when she was his tie to his father, his way of gaining his father's good graces again.

"I'm just thinking," he said stonily. That was all he was willing to give her.

Azula came over, hands folded behind her back as Zuko leaned on the balcony railing and looked out at the dimming sunlight beyond. The stars were just starting to peek into view from beyond the veil of half-light, over the tops of the buildings.

"It is quite a prize," she said of the city.

Zuko didn't bother with making conversation. He had seen the messengers.

"What did father have to say about me?"

Next to him, the corner of Azula's mouth quirked.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" she asked, handing him the other letter, which she had resealed in her quarters, as if it had never been read at all, the crest of the Fire Nation pressed into the wax. "He sent you a letter in response to my report about your actions."

_Weak_, Azula thought, watching him try so hard to keep his unmaimed eye from widening, watching him try to keep his hand from trembling as he took the letter from her hand.

He knew he ought to read it in private, he knew it might reveal too much for her to see his reaction to it, but it felt as if his hands were moving of their own accord. Zuko opened the little scroll and looked at the writing within. The script was one not one of his father's scribe's--it was written in his father's own strong, perfect characters.

He read it.

When he was finished, he stood straighter, a horrible weight lifted from his shoulders for the first time in three years.

"I told you that helping me with the coup would win back his favor. In my orders, he decreed that you're to help me, Mai, and Ty Lee enforce the Fire Nation's rule in the more troublesome towns and cities. I assume he informed you of this, and that if your performance is adequate, your honor will be restored upon our return home." Azula smirked. "Welcomes back to the fold, brother," she said, sounding as if she was genuinely pleased.

The act nearly made her sick.

Her words were a buzz on deaf ears, as Li the Tea-boy died one last silent death, Zuko the Embarassment burned away, and Zuko the Exile was no more.

He was Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, and the heir to the throne had his orders.

Zuko knew who he was.

...He thought.

---

"Ahaha!" Plop went an overripe peach-apple onto an older monk's head. Shooting a glare up at Aang for his childish antics, the monk continued on in quiet dignity.

It was so warm where Aang was. There was a misty glow that had fallen on everything like a golden veil, and Aang sat on Appa's back, all snuggled into his fur, as the two rested in one of the treetops near the temple.

Master Gyatso was sweeping off the balcony, having fun with it as he always did by using the broom to airbend and shake the lemurs out of the trees so they hopped down onto the heads of the young monks below. It was a harmless prank, resulting in alarm and surprise but then in the boys and lemurs playing with one another.

Aang laughed, from his vantage point on Appa's back in the tree and Gyatso smiled as he continued to sweep, looking very innocent.

But there was something...wrong.

Something was wrong, there was someone missing, someone he had to find, and he was so tired, but he couldn't sleep.

He had the sudden striking fear that if he fell asleep, he wouldn't wake up for a hundred years.

Appa made a horrible bellowing noise and suddenly he was gone, as if he were made of glass that had shattered away into nothing.

"Appa! Appa, no! Come back!" Aang cried as he fell into the branches, then snagged a hand on one and flipped himself up onto it, looking around at the temple in a panic. Gyatso was gone, the broom lay discarded and falling apart on the steps of the balcony.

The temple was deserted. No saffron robes, no bison, no lemurs, not even the little hermit crabs scuttling around.

"Appa? Appa!" he called out and he jumped down from the tree, only to find himself in an Earth Kingdom City, one he'd seen for the first time in his life only recently, and yet had seen a thousand times over: Ba Sing Se.

The city was burning.

"Appa!"

There was something wrong, someone else, something he was forgetting, something just as important as Appa...

The fires crackled and roared in Aang's ears, but once again, there were no people. He was alone, torn away from everything.

And he was forgetting...

Toph. Sokka. The Dai Li. Azula and Zuko in the cave.

"Katara!"

He had to find them. They had to be somewhere in the city.

Cupping his hands around his mouth and the air carried the sound farther than it normally could have. "Katara! Sokka! Toph!"

He couldn't tell if this was real, he couldn't tell if he was dreaming, he couldn't remember what had happened to his friends, what had happened to Katara, and he still had to find Appa...Appa was still lost, right? Still lost in the city. Yes. He had to--

There was a flash of blue that darted down an alley.

"Katara? Sokka?"

The smoke was started to become overwhelming, but he started running anyway, the wind at his heels propelling him along, skidding as he turned down the alley.

A braid flicked and disappeared around the next corner.

"Katara, stop! We have to get out of here!"

They had to run away like he always ran away.

The chase kept on, and he had to blow smoke out of his way with airbending, but the fire just sucked it in greedily and swelled up higher whenever he did. Paper and paint curled and wood glowed orange and white and dropped ash in piles and still-glowing mounds in the dirt.

There she stood in a courtyard with a fountain surrounded by torches, now catching and burning down, lanterns bursting into flame even as they floated on the water.

Of course--she was just trying to find water.

"Katara, I don't think that's enough water for us to put out the city--come on, we have to go!"

The eclipse was coming. Or maybe the comet--one or the other and that was bad.

Her back was to him and she stood there, silent as death.

"Katara?"

Despite all the heat and the fact that his clothes were sticking to him, despite the hot sweat that was dribbling down his back in a line like his tattoo, the fear that clawed at his heart and clenched up his lungs was cold.

"Can't you hear me?"

Stepping forward, slowly, he reached a hand for her shoulder and pulled her around to face him.

Except that she couldn't face him. Her face was _gone_.

A high, terrified scream clawed out of his throat and he fell back on his rear, and into the legs of someone else.

Turning, he looked up, and piercing green eyes took up all his vision, glowing green eyes that sucked in all the light, that made the city fade around them until he and the eyes were all alone in the dark.

Instinctually, Aang's eyes flared with a light he could not longer touch and he screamed again.

---

Aang bolted upright from where he'd been sleeping on Appa's fluffy arm with a sharp gasp, his heart pounding sluggishly in his chest. His eyes didn't glow now, as they had in his dream. They couldn't anymore. His link to the Avatar State was still gone.

Appa rumbled comfortingly at him.

It was a cool night, at least for the Earth Kingdom, and windy. The stars were just starting to peek out overhead.

They were, in fact, on a ship, he realized, although he couldn't smell the salt smell on the wind--all he could smell was the staticy odor that sometimes came before a heavy electrical storm.

It was a little wooden-and whale-bone ship, made from taut skins, that barely had room for Appa on its deck--which was damaged and covered in splintered debris and flotsam; pock-marked with burns. It rocked and creaked gently in the ocean swells, and the sails were unfurled and full of wind. It seemed they were pressing out into the ocean.

If he looked behind him and to his right, he saw a vague green continent curving around them, caught in a shroud of mist, cast aglow by the setting sun. He must have slept the day away--or more than just one day away.

Snoring louder than Appa's grunting was the Earth King's pet bear (just a bear, Aang couldn't get over how weird that was, even now) laying across a few barrels, although the Earth King himself was nowhere to be found. Some of the men, warriors clad in blue, were looking curiously at the bear, at Appa, and at him, in between doing their duties, hammering and nailing and carving, and sanding away, as they repaired things.

Usually when Aang had nightmares, Katara woke up--she was usually a light sleeper--but tonight she didn't because she wasn't there. She had obviously cared for him before she'd gone though. He realized that what had been left of his shirt was gone, and he now had bandages wrapped around his torso and foot. There was still a line that ached, a jagged line that went through his body from chest to foot, leaving his nerves buzzing.

At least his teeth didn't feel like they were vibrating in his skull anymore, and the burns and scrapes and all the smaller hurts were gone. It also felt like his back was partly closed up and healing on it's own--it was itchy.

It probably had been too big for Katara to heal entirely.

However, he could feel his heart skipping beats here and there and that was alarming.

_Badump-**bump**-budumpa-**dump**-badump_. Sometimes it pounded too hard and loud, sometimes it was too soft. That he'd woken up so frightened didn't help. It made him short of breath.

For a moment longer, he sat in the dim light, as the sun set, thinking, hearing murmuring voices, as the stars wheeled overhead. Then he heard a voice in the dark nearby, but it wasn't Katara's.

"You--you okay, Twinkletoes?"

Toph was sitting in the light of dusk, unbothered by the coming dark, comfortable on a bundle of ratty, water-stained ropes, curled and coiled on the deck. Left behind to watch over him maybe? Or listen over him at least.

"Hey, Toph," Aang creaked out quietly. "Where--where are we?"

"About halfway out of Chameleon Bay. Katara and Sokka are warning their dad about what happened before he and his men find out the hard way. And then...they're all figuring out what to do from there." She looked vaguely uncomfortable. "I hope we're not stuck out on this stupid piece of driftwood for long."

Aang closed his eyes tight, not that Toph could see it.

"How long--was I asleep?"

"A couple of hours."

The Airbender leaned back against Appa's arm, half burying his face in his fur. Appa's hot breath briefly poured over him as the bison snuffled against him affectionately.

After a moment, his hand still on Appa's muzzle, he said to Toph, with great gravity, "I'm--sorry."

What he got back was a perplexed answer of, "For what?"

"For failing. Your whole--country is controlled--by the Fire Nation now. I don't even--know how I'm going--to apologize enough to--to the Earth King."

"Stop apologizing. Earthbenders don't apologize," was Toph's short response. "If you think that Ba Sing Se being captured means that the Fire Nation's won the entire Earth Kingdom, you're crazy. Every border town, every province will put up a fight, just like we always have for the last hundred years."

"But Sozen's comet--"

"There's still an eclipse, right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Well, who said the army you need to invade the Fire Nation has to be the army of Ba Sing Se? There are Earthbenders in other cities, bases, and towns all over the Earth Kingdom. The Fire Nation can't get to them all by the eclipse."

She...had a really good point, Aang realized.

"And there--are the Water Tribes. Both--of them," Aang said.

"Exactly. So quit feeling sorry for yourself and focus on how you're going to gather up so many different people into one army. And stop screaming like a girl all the time when you wake up. You're lucky none of the rest of were sleeping." There was amusement in her voice however, and Aang knew she was just acting like usual, because...because it was better that way.

Change was life, but normalcy was important, even for a nomad, one was used to change.

"Thanks, Toph."

"Don't mention it. Now stop...stop talking, okay? Rest." It unnerved her, apparently, to hear him speak with such a weak voice.

She was also probably serious about not mentioning it, Aang thought. Her being hopeful and cheering him up would ruin her image.

He was thinking about that, dizzily, as Katara and Sokka came out on the deck from the ship's cabin, along with a man that looked remarkably like the both of them, and Bato, the Earth King, and some others.

At least he thought it was them. His vision was still a little fuzzy and little brightly colored spots were swimming around in it. The dark wasn't helping.

At the moment, Appa was so protective that he grunted at the men, only letting Katara and Sokka get close.

"Appa, it's okay," came Katara's gentle voice, and she carefully prepared him to be moved, bundling the Earth King's robes around him, her blue eye glittering at him in the half-dark, reassuring. Sokka, though, was the one that lifted him into his arms, a fragile, breathless bundle of Earth Kingdom robes and boy.

"The deck's still damaged, from the last battle--we're going to pass you along, okay?" Sokka said, in a strange gentle voice, the kind of voice he reserved for those rare times he talked about such serious things as the moon. It scared Aang a little to hear Sokka talk like that, but then the older Water tribe boy said, "Don't worry, Akkat hasn't dropped anybody on their head in _ages_," and that made it all better (if slightly alarming).

Sokka handed him to the next man, who was straddled over a patched up hole in the deck, and Aang couldn't help but remember something.

Katara had said so long ago, in the cave during the storm, that he gave people hope. Aang rarely cared what others thought of him, even if he liked attention, but he wondered now if they saw him as something like that now--as something that gave them hope.

How could someone so utterly beaten give them hope?

How could a failure give them hope?

But the men, and even more of them that came up from below deck, all stepped forward, sailors and soldiers and fathers and sons and brothers all, and he was gently passed from one man to the next, over the many crates and ropes on deck, over the refuse and damage from the most recent battle that they hadn't yet been cleared away, and not once was he jostled. Not once did he feel pain from it. There were more than was really necessary supporting and carrying him.

The expressions on their faces weren't what he expected, and what they said wasn't what he expected either, whispers in gruff voices, some from young men, not much other than Sokka, some from old soldiers, hale and hearty:

"--have to thank you, Avatar--"

"--you've taken good care of ours--"

"--helped keep those kids in one piece as much as they helped you--"

"--this was just one battle--"

"--we haven't lost yet--"

"--you'll be good as new in no time--"

"--Up and fighting with the rest of us, you'll see--"

"--heard you saved our sister tribe in the north--"

"--helped save our people there, the reports said--"

Then they'd gotten him past the dangerous bit of deck and he was in Bato's arms, "Hello again, little friend."

Then Bato passed him on and at last he was in the strongest, most welcoming arms out of all of them.

There was silence for a moment.

Aang decided to speak first, looking up into the face of the man with the blue eyes that twinkled a little like Katara's and Sokka's did.

"Hi Katara--and Sokka's dad," he said at last, raspily, and Hakoda's face bloomed into a gentle smile. Aang could see both Katara and Sokka in that smile (more Sokka than Katara, but both were in there), and even as he thought that, the two of them, Katara helping a stubborn Toph along, and Sokka tripping over a bundle of rope, climbed over the debris and joined him and their father.

"So, this is our honorary Water Tribe warrior, is it? We meet at last," he said warmly. He could see why the two loved him so much, could imagine how it must have felt to be cradled and carried in those arms growing up.

So this was a father.

Gyatso was a father, but he was a different kind of father--and not technically one.

Of course, the thought of Gyatso made Aang's heart ache even more.

"Sokka tells me that when you came for him--not only were you coming to get him and go for Katara like you told me--but you even left in the middle of your Avatar training to do it, and that's why you got injured this badly."

His voice cracked only slightly, barely noticeably.

"He told me that the Fire Nation had her."

"Dad--" Katara said worriedly, feeling guilty about the whole thing, obviously.

But Aang nodded weakly. "Yes." He wanted to tell him: _I would do anything for her._

Hakoda's blue eyes regarded him for a moment, then were set on his two children, on his daughter's proud and worried face.

"For saving our Northern brothers and sisters alone, we owe you our gratitude..." he said, and he looked back to the boy he cradled, took a deep breath, and despite it, he still sounded a little breathless as he went on, "...but for saving one of my children, I owe you my life. I owe you _everything_."

Aang's eyes squeezed shut.

"The Earth King and I have made arrangements to gather our people and help you," he said. "It's far from over, and you have the entire Southern fleet at your command, Avatar Aang, and any Earth Kingdom town, city, and fort we can get to reach along the way. The moment we rejoin the Northern Fleet, you'll have them, too, and we'll gather our forces to invade during the eclipse.

Oh--and welcome to the family."

Katara and Sokka loved him and Aang loved them back. That was all it took.

"After all, Bato did make you a member of the Tribe. Aang the Trusted--and you certainly proved yourself trustworthy with the two things I value more than anything in the world."

His eyes still squeezed shut, Aang's body started to shake with suppressed sobs. Relief, maybe. He wasn't sure at this point. All he could be sure of was that he was hurting and that he was overwhelmed.

"Oh, Aang..." Katara said, reaching in and hugging him and her father along with him.

"Let's get him inside," Hakoda said gently, retreating into the cabin. He was going to be given the softest skins on the ship. "He needs his rest."

Behind him, Aang heard Bato commanding the other man, "Clean up the deck a little more and make sure it's safe for the Avatar's bison--set up a tarp for him, too, in case we hit a storm soon--oh, and watch out for the lemur." There was a laugh in his voice. "I've seen him in action--he's trouble."

Aang's vision blurred again, as tears poured down his face and the light of glowing crystals illuminated the faces of his friends and Hakoda, the dyed skins on the walls. Their faces filled his dimming vision, and faded, as the ship rocked in the sea breeze, and the night-tide carried him away from the place of his failure and into a dreamless sleep.


	4. Chapter 3 Hiatus From Life

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom, Avatar or any other fictional work referred to in this story. Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, and others do. The characters and whatnot being used are only being used for fun and not profit.

**A/N the First:** Yes, the new Guys in White--or rather the Guys in Grey--are exactly who the narrative says they are. They were originally meant to be more of a caricature. However, in my plans, this fearsome ghost-hunting foursome have wormed their way in, so instead of having them be caricatured parody versions of the original, they're going much more integral to the story, hence they are going to be themselves as they are--just as if they came about in DP-verse instead of their own world. You can't parody comedic brilliance.

If you haven't figured out quite who the new Guys in White are--although I imagine a few already have--read on. After this chapter, a new fandom is going into the disclaimer.

The way I figure it is: with a crossover this big, what's one more fandom squeezed in, right?

Also, I estimate one more shortish chapter of Avatar, then one more longish one of DP, before actual crossovering occurs. Sorry for the long set-up, but even when Danny and the gang are crossed over, there's still stuff that's going to be going down in DP-verse that'll tie into the crux of the story and why Danny and the gang are willing to get their hands dirty in the conflict of another world. It really needs the setting up. You'll see later.

**ALSO SPOILERS:** I managed to catch a glimpse of some of the upcoming DP episodes. This story will incorporate some of those unaired episodes, but with a distinct difference--the "series" did not end, because the events in D-Stabilized, and Phantom Planet happened very differently/didn't happen at all. There won't be huge spoiling, just little details here and there. The episodes will start airing on Nick this month, I believe, for those who haven't been naughty on the net and found them elsewhere.

**Spartancommander: **Danny is the spiritual guardian of the Earth—and the Ghost Zone, technically, as he's the Bridge between them. Just as Aang is the same for the World of the Four Nations and the Spirit World. Vlad isn't a guardian of anything because he's evil, and in a way, the universe balanced out Vlad's existence by Danny having the accident. With no Danny, who could keep Vlad in check? With no Danny who would stop the ghosts from mucking up the Earth and the Guys in White from mucking up the Ghost Zone? It's not just being half-ghost that makes him a guardian--he sort of shoved himself into that spot by deciding to be a good guy. OR maybe something else nudged him, whispered in his ear 'Hey. Hey, you totally want to poke around inside the portal. Go ahead. It's interesting isn't it? Come on, you know you waaannaa.' Who knows?

But regardless, it's that he's put himself in that position that makes him Guardian.

And as powerful as Vlad is, he will always lose because he's prone to two things Danny knows how to take advantage of because he's clever—monologuing and ego. Which usually run hand in hand. In fact, you might be interested as to what's happened to Vlad. You'll find out in a chapter or two.

And Danny will fit into the World of the Four Nations better than you might think at first, but then he's going to have a very wise and powerful ally that will be his traveling companion for a while. Also, he's about as powerful as some of the more elite 'Benders. If he and Aang were to ever get into a fight, at the height of both their powerful, there's no telling who would win.

And HAHA, his enemies following him…well. In reality, he's going to be following one of THEM. Although the mechanics of the Spirit World and the spirits in Avatar is very different. Some are malevolent, like Koh, some are distant and have their own neutral intentions, and therefore can be either hostile or kind, like the Hei Bai and Wan Shi Tong. Some are benevolent. They follow a different set of rules though rather than blindly wanting to cause destruction and actually some trouble will come of Danny mistakenly assuming that, being spirits, they intend to wreak havoc. He will piss some of them off, and rule number one is: Don't piss off the spirits. Look what happened to Zhao.

I don't think there will be any ghost ninjas though.

Although…

**Sasia93: **Danny did indeed dream the mirror image, in the first DP chapter. He was seeing Aang's eyes in Aang's dream of Ba Sing Se burning. And feel free to ask questions! So long as they don't spoil too much I love answering.

**Soului: **Thank you for the compliment! Part of why I wrote this was because I'm an "I can do it so much better" kind of writer. I've seen so many fics that just randomly throw two canons together without any real rhyme or reason so I wanted to try to think of something a little more reasonable. I'm relieved to know you think I've pulled it off.

---

**The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.**

---

**Dead Faces**

**---**

**Episode Three - Hiatus (From Life)**

**Or**

**Danny and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day**

---

There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A, B, C may read our natures.

--Sir Thomas Browne

---

It's funny how you miss some things only when they're not a constant in your life anymore.

For instance, and I know this sounds utterly ridiculous: I miss the Box Ghost.

See, about two years back, I realized that he wasn't getting in through the Ghost Portal. There are lots of random portals in the Ghost Zone, even if you have to search countless ones to find one that leads to the right place and time. Apparently that's what old Boxy does.

And you have to admire that kind of persistence, don't you?

So one time, he went all serious and got a hold of Pandora's box and released on the world--trying to get respect and get his bounty in the Ghost Zone to go up--and that was the only time he's ever been trouble. After that, he quieted down, and eventually, I stopped beating up on him and realized that the best way to deal with him is bribery. If he shows up, all it takes is a few rolls of bubble-wrap and packing tape, and one, he'll spout off the current gossip going around in the Ghost Zone and give me any information I want about the big fishes, and two, he'll just float on back to presumably tape and bubble-wrap corrugated cardboard things in his lair.

No fighting, no wasted time--the system works, and I always have a pack of tape or a roll of bubble-wrap in my bag when I'm fighting, just in case.

Of course, now I hardly ever see him at all anymore. He's content to stay in the Ghost Zone packing and taping, and I think--ew--he's starting a family with the Lunch Lady--ew.

I wonder if I'll be seeing Box Lunch anytime soon (did I mention "ew"?)

But the overall affect of that is that it makes me miss the days when I could let out some tension with the occasional Box Ghost beating, and I guess...I miss hearing the occasional bleated "BEWARE!"

(Have you ever tried saying that? "BEWARE!" It's actually kind of fun).

It's like a piece of my _childhood_ is gone.

Another part of my life I miss more than anything? Pulled up in her pink convertible outside Sam's house to pick me up the next morning, when I hadn't even realized she was back in Amity Park.

---

"Hop in. We're going out to breakfast, just you and me. Mom and dad know."

With a quick goodbye to Sam and Tucker, Danny hopped right over the door and into the passenger seat of Jazz's car, and wrapped his arms around his sister's neck in a huge hug.

"What are you doing home? It's not summer yet!" A few years ago, he'd have grumbled about having to sit through a long, horrible car-ride with his sister, but now he couldn't contain the excitement in his voice.

Jazz hugged him right back. "The semester's over for me, and I didn't have that month-long seminar this year that I did last year," she said, and when she and Danny separated, she reached up and held his chin, examining the red and angry marks on his face, and sucked in a breath through her teeth.

"Yeah, I know. I look like crud," Danny sighed, shrugging out of her grip. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring grin. "You know how it is--with how fast I heal, it'll be gone in a day or two. Or by tomorrow."

Jazz frowned anyway and put her car into gear, and they started rolling along. The breeze was cool on his face, even if the May air was somewhat warm and stagnant to begin with. Yay for convertibles.

"Danny, you had a close call again, and you don't have to pretend everything is fine around me. You're upset and I can tell."

---

Can't put anything past her. In the past it was infuriating. Now...well, it's still infuriating, but the upside is that it feels like I have a grownup to confide in. Jazz pretty much is all grown up now--come to think of it, I pretty much am, too--but still. I wish I could talk to my parents about everything, and since I can't do that without making them worry, I talk to Jazz instead. When I'm being too immature, she tells me to grow up, when I'm being too serious, she tells me to lighten up and not to forget how to have fun.

...Who'd have expected that from _Jazz_?

But anyway, even superheroes need to feel like there's someone protecting them, and Jazz is the one who protects me.

She took me to this really good waffle place on the edge of town and over a giant mound of blueberry pancakes (I was so hungry after all that fighting), and her belgian waffles, we talked about, well, _everything_.

One thing we'd learned after a while is that when you're talking quietly in a restaurant, in a corner booth, nobody really pays attention to you. See: all previous discussions we've ever had in our booth in the Nasty Burger for proof.

---

"--And then it just disappeared."

"Just disappeared into the woods."

"Yep."

"That _is_ strange."

"Yep."

Danny stuffed more pancakes into his mouth.

"Are you okay?" asked his sister, her eyes on him, wide and worried.

"M'okay," Danny said, around a full mouth. He swallowed. "A little spooked, but okay."

_Ha. 'Spooked.'_

Jazz still looked worried. "And you've never see that ghost before? The one that grabbed Skulker and trashed the mall?"

"Nope," Danny said, mushing up his pancakes with his fork. "Of course, that's kind of in keeping with the many surprises I've already had to deal with lately--The Fright Knight still being alive--well, not destroyed at least, the White Rider showing up again, Desiree's little visit to the Amusement Park, Skulker getting out of the pit around the Black Bridge and joining with Technus..."

The last one had him worried, and thinking...

Jazz, of course, quickly figured out why that worried him. "Danny, just because Skulker and Technus joined together, it doesn't mean that future is going to happen. You stopped that."

"I know!" Danny dropped his fork to push a hand through his hair, and lowered his voice. "I know, Jazz. It's just, after what happened..."

"At the Towers."

A wince. "Yeah. I'm just afraid of screwing up more. You know?"

"Listen, little brother," Jazz said softly, "The fact that you care so much, and feel so guilty for what happened just shows that you're _nothing_ like him. And I know it's hard. You're still grieving."

"I don't know if I'd use the word 'grieving'..."

"Why not? It fits. Just because she didn't die, it doesn't mean that you aren't grieving over what happened," Jazz pointed out, "but grieving is okay. I think you'd be better off grieving first and letting out all the bad feelings I _know_ you've let build up since then, and then I think you'll be able to make some peace with it."

---

I _was_ grieving. But I was too stupid to admit anything about my feelings at the time.

I...tend to do that a lot.

---

"Let's try some word association."

"Oh geez. _Jazz_..."

She got a list out of her bag. Why she had lists like that _always_ on hand he had no idea.

_Probably for moments just like these._

"Table," she said. "Booth," was his answer.

"Music." "Dumpty Humpty."

"Sickness." "Ecto-acne."

"Soft." "Skin." He flushed, as Sam had come to mind with that one, but Jazz went on.

"Eating." "Pancakes."

"Mountain." "Observatory."

"Fruit." "Blueberry."

"Butterfly." "Firefly."

"Smooth." "Glass."

"Command." "Center."

"Chair." "Sit."

"River." "Is Made of Chocolate," he said nerdily.

"Stop joking around. White." He sighed. "Rider."

"Wish." "Desiree."

"Comfort." "Cookies."

"Hand." "Phase."

"House." "Portal."

"Short." "Lifespan."

"..._Danny._" "What?"

She sighed and went on. "Man." "Ghost."

"Cold." "Breath."

"Slow." "Reaction."

"Towers." His eyes were averted, looking down at his pancakes. "Failure."

"Nightmare." "Eyes."

"Black." "Bridge."

"Dark." "Door."

He was leaning on his hand looking bored as they went through most of that, and she stopped, looking at him with an odd expression on her face.

Danny looked up from his pancakes and stared back, head still resting on his hand. "..._What_?"

---

Jazz thought I was getting obsessed with my "work." She also was curious as to why I'd answered the last few the way I did.

I knew that she thought all this because as we went home, she wouldn't _shut up_ about it.

---

"It's just a strange jump."

"Well, 'black' and 'bridge' isn't. That place is creepy."

"Did you and Sam and Tucker ever see what was on the other side of the Bridge?"

"No. After you go a ways, it just starts getting too creepy. Shadows moving around, and they start attacking you. I'd rather not know what's at the end of it," he said, leaning his head against the car door so his hair was blowing around in the wind.

They'd discovered the Black Bridge a year before, during one of their regular explorations of the ghost Zone. It was exactly what the name implied, a huge black bridge over a great expanse, a swirling black hole of a chasm that couldn't be flown over or the flier faced risk of being sucked in. Only the bridge itself, which wound up and around and in impossible spirals, and the area right over its surface, was free of the suction.

The further along it you wandered, the darker it got, until it was nearly impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, and shadow things started lunging out of the dark.

Danny suspected that Johnny Thirteen's bad luck shadow had been picked up from the chasm, as it resembled the vicious creatures there, almost as if the rebellious biker ghost had tamed a wild animal for a pet, like people tamed pet squirrels and taught them to water-ski on feel-good soft news pieces on TV.

Who knew what was at the end of it--it got to a point where Danny, Sam, and Tucker gave up on the spirit of adventure, realized the Bridge was even more dangerous that Carnivorous Canyon and the River of Revulsion, and turned tail and flew right back into the safer regions of the Ghost Zone. Barring a few fights around the area--including the one where Danny had knocked Skulker into the expanse--he hadn't gone back.

Even the ghosts avoided that place, and Danny'd managed to squeeze some of the rumors and legends out of them, or rather he managed to squeeze the _fear_ they had for the place out of them, if nothing specific. All he'd found out was that the place was rumored to be nearly as old as the Ghost Zone itself and was tied into its nebulous history, to the stories about the reign of Pariah Dark, the Ghost King, and the Ancient Ghosts that imprisoned him.

It, quite frankly, gave him the heebie jeebies. Not just because it was creepy, because he was used to creepy. He ate creepy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No, there was something...big about the place. There was a history to it, an air of 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.' It was as if there was a line there, and if it was crossed, there was no coming back.

"What about eyes?"

Danny was shaken out of his reverie by Jazz's question and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I've been having these really freaky dreams lately, where I see these glowing eyes."

"Your reflection?"

"No, they're not green. Kind of blue-ish--just really bright. They don't--they're not anybody's I know, at least. Not Vlad's. Not..._his._"

Jazz frowned again, this time in worry, eyes on the road, and bit her lip. "What about 'dark' and 'door'?"

He thought about that for a moment. "I think I dreamed that too." It had just been on the edge of his subconscious, the mental image of a big, black door. "I don't know, Jazz. You know how it is. I have weird dreams all the time--sometimes it means something, because of the whole ghostly hero, destiny thing, blah blah blah. Sometimes it's just because my _life_ is nutty and my brain's, like, puking up stuff while I sleep."

"Lovely mental image there, little brother."

He smirked a little. "You asked." Even at his age, he still enjoyed grossing her out. It was a little brother thing. "Anyway, the other night I dreamed about this bald lizard slapping a priest in the face in front of a church. It doesn't mean anything. Not everything does."

"Actually, I have a dream interpretation book in the trunk and lizards mean--"

Facepalming. "It doesn't. Mean. Anything."

Jazz stopped her car at a red light, and all of a sudden the cars around them started beeping their horns. She perked up and craned her neck to look down the road perpendicular to them. "What's going on? Is there an accident?"

There was a sinking feeling in Danny's stomach and he sunk down in his seat right along with it, as his ghost sense went off, the little puff of blue fog coming out of his mouth.

Jazz noticed. "It's another ghost," she said flatly.

"Yep."

Right on schedule, a giant brown centipede-like creature scuttled up the road in front of them, across the intersection.

"You're already exhausted."

"Yep."

Jazz pushed the button that put up the roof of her car as Danny started knocking his forehead head against the dashboard. Repeatedly.

"Maybe you can make it quick?" she said hopefully, reaching into the back seat and handing him the Fenton Thermos she kept there. The design had changed a little over the years. It was sleeker, more compact, and came in customizable colors. Quite unfortunately for him, Jazz's was hot pink and his was back in the trunk.

_Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud._ "Maybe." He held out a hand and grabbed the thermos. Now that Jazz's car was closed in, he sunk down further in his seat so that he wasn't visible and for a moment, green light flashed out of Jazz's car windows.

"Be--"

"--careful--" he said at the same time she said it.

"--little brother," she finished, as Danny sat there looking miserable.

"I know," he sighed.

---

It's easy to be a superhero when you feel great, when you're having a good day and you had a good night's sleep.

Flying around, saving the day, to the cheers of an adoring (so-long-as- someone-hasn't-turned-them-against-me) populace...

It's a lot harder when you've hardly slept at all, when you're hurting and exhausted, when all the everyday worries like school, and your future, and paying enough attention to your girlfriend, and making your parents proud of you, take over and make it feel like something is gnawing its way out from inside your stomach. Like something out of Femaliens.

It's a lot harder to do it when that's been your life, day after day, for _years_.

I don't think I remember what it's like not to be in pain. I don't remember what it feels like to have skin without bruises or scrapes or cuts stinging under my clothes, to not have joints wrenched and aching.

I _know_ I don't remember what it's like not to worry about just about _everything_.

It gets so tiring sometimes, but what am I supposed to do?

Just let it go and take a nap?

---

The monster tore down the sign of the Nasty Burger and through it out into the road, sending a truck veering just barely out of the way as it smashed into the ground.

---

Uh, I don't _think_ so.

---

Danny sighed again and Jazz smiled a tender, familiar smile at him. It was a sad smile, a 'I wish I could do more' smile. He'd seen it before--with the Fenton Ghost-tech working less and less efficiently, there really wasn't much she could do, just like Sam and Tuck.

"I'll be waiting up the street. And as soon as we get home, I'll get the hot water bottle and the icepacks ready for you."

With that she pressed a kiss to his forehead, and forget all the psychoanalyzation of the day and the questions, that was what made him break down. Closing his eyes tight and leaning into her, he mumbled into her shoulder, "I'm so _tired_."

She put her car into park, and threw her arms around him. "I know," she said, a hand rubbing his back comfortingly. "I know, Danny."

Danny wasn't exactly a huge fan of boxing, but regardless, Sam and Tuck were his cornermen. Jazz, on the other hand, was his cutman.

"I know, but you need to go. I'll be here."

She made sure he got doctored up and went back out into the ring.

Jazz let go and he phased, flying up through the roof of her car.

"Watch out, long, creepy, and crawly--the exterminator's here!"

The creature didn't turn around, only proceeded slithering towards the Nasty Burger and Danny fired an ecto blast at it, making it shudder and hiss, as it stopped right where it was. Danny put his hands on his hips.

"HEY!" he cried at the top of his lungs. "Turn around and _face_ me, ugly!"

The thing turned…

It had no face. It didn't even have eyes, just a mouth with sharp serrated mandibles around the edge.

Danny's eyes went wide and he raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, I could have maybe worded that a liiittle bit better."

Still hissing, it lunged at him, launching itself off of the ground to a surprising height. Apparently all those little segmented legs were powerful.

Danny dodged, blasting the thing. "Whoa! Down, boy! Heel! Um, roll up in a ball." A paused. "Wait, that's millipedes, isn't it."

It leaped at him again, and he phased, but despite the phasing, it slammed into him bodily, knocking him to the ground with its crushing weight. "No--fair!" he grunted.

He couldn't figure out how the thing worked. It had no eyes, no ears--maybe the straggly things around its mouth were an antenna? And it _was_ a mouth, complete with razor sharp teeth.

_I have an inkling feeling that if I don't get free, I'm going to find out what's usually in its diet._

Except that as he sat there, his expression blank, as it often went when he was confused, the thing just sat on him, not letting him up, but not attacking him either.

Oooohkay. Now he was just confused. Why wasn't it attacking him? Had it only attacked in the first place because it was confused? Or frightened? Sometimes, dumber ghosts wandered out of the Ghost Zone, and they really couldn't be held responsible for what they did. They were usually the big dumb animal types. In those cases, it was more like he was playing at behind Animal Control and releasing them back into their yards, rather than fighting a sentient thing willingly causing trouble and chais.

Was this one of them?

"Nice bug monster. How about you get off of me and let me up, okay?

Danny's eyebrows both raised, imploringly.

"Skreeeeee!" it suddenly screeched. The teeth folded inward, apparently unnecessary, as the mouth opened, lowering towards his face, exuding a strange mist the same green-blue color of Skulker's toxic net.

Just like before, his face started to burn, around the edges, and the monster started sucking in. He felt as if it was trying to peel off his face, and it was tugging at something even deeper inside him, something that was rooted in his chest, that went down to his fingers and toes.

Something inside him was _splitting_ in _two_.

He screamed.

When he looked inside, he saw...a light...and...and...

He had never seen anything like it.

It was a tunnel. A deep tunnel that went far too deep, and at the end of it…

At the end of it there was a green sea.

"AUUUGH!"

A green sea that was full of floating faces, twisted in anguish and terror.

One scream was all he indulged in, before taking as deep a breath as he could and using his ice power to blow out a gust of freezing cold air, causing the toxic face-burning mist to get sucked up and frozen inside the creature's open mouth.

It screeched again somehow, even though its mouth was frozen shut, and reared up in agony, turning and scuttling away as Danny climbed to his feet. Funnily enough, his face didn't hurt now. Weird.

He pulled out the Fenton thermos, aimed--and watched as the creature used the pincher-antenna around its mouth to make a portal, as if it was sticking it's appendages into reality itself and winching it apart.

He pressed the button, but the creature--the facestealer, Danny decided to call it--slipped through the hole into the green miasma of the Ghost Zone, causing the beam to narrowly miss its mark.

With a grunt of frustration, he motored through the air towards the hole, his legs forming into their usual wispy tail that wiggled away--and the portal closed, sending him sailing right past it.

"Crud!" If it wasn't such expensive equipment--and Jazz's--he'd have hurled the ghost thermos to the ground in frustration.

Before he could vent his temper at all, there was the mortified voice of his big sister behind him, rising in pitch in its trepidation. "Daaannny?"

Danny turned around.

---

Face-eating monsters aren't entirely a new thing. I mean, most don't try to do some weird soul-sucking thing along with it, but plenty of creatures in the Ghost Zone--and the real world, if we're counting the Guys in White--try to tear your face off.

Ha! I remember this time when me and Frostbite were on the Ghost Tundra, and there were these snow worms that--

Oh wait, I'm cutting in during a suspenseful part, aren't I.

Whoops.

Uh, anyway, face-eating monsters aren't an entirely new thing. Except that those try to _literally_ eat your face. Face-_stealing_ monsters were totally new.

Which was why the only things that remotely prepared me for what I saw were the fact that I can duplicate myself, and a certain incident involving the Fenton Ghost-Catcher...

---

Danny lowered himself down to the ground and stared.

And he stared.

For good measure, he stared some more.

Then he silently pointed.

"I came back because you were taking so long--and that thing--when it was--it did--and you separated!" Jazz stammered, cradling the body of...well, him. Black hair, white t-shirt with the little red oval on it, jeans, sneakers...

Except--and this was a big exception--it had no face. Gone. Just bare skin there, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no nothing. Just smooth skin.

"Oh my God." Danny started panicking, and he ran over, dropping to his knees, hands hovering hesitantly over...it, him. His double. "I _know_ I didn't duplicate. I was too distracted to duplicate. Oh my God. I already used the 'a ghost stole my face' excuse sophomore year with Amorpho! Mom and dad aren't going to buy it _again_!'"

That feeling of being torn in two now made a lot of sense now.

He suddenly noticed something. "Is he breathing?"

Jazz, who was holding a hand to the faceless double's neck, shook her head frantically.

_Oh __**no**_

He tried desperately to go human again, testing to see if he could, but he couldn't summon the spark, the rings of light. Panting hysterically, Danny looked up at his sister, eyes wide and terrified.

"I can't go human."

This could have been like what happened with the Ghost Catcher. Possibly. But when that had happened, he'd felt different. His ghost half had been all super-duper annoying and he didn't feel that way right now. He felt normal. Plus, when that happened, his human half'd still had a face and was _breathing_.

Since his body wasn't breathing, and he wasn't _in_ it, and he was stuck in his ghost form, that meant...it meant...

He clapped a gloved hand to his forehead.

_Am I dead?_

Did that monster suck his soul right out of his body?

"Danny, I think we have a problem here..." Jazz said, looking just as terrified.

"Of course we have a problem! I think I'm dead! I don't--" he started to say, but before he could finish, his (un?)life just got even better, as he, Jazz, and his (dead?) double were surrounded by the high-pitched whines of ecto weapons charging.

"Sparky, I hate to break it to you, but being a ghost, you definitely _are_ dead," said the very schmoozy man from the group of four that had been at the mall.

Both he and Jazz had been so distracted that they hadn't noticed the arrival of the newly deputized Guys in White, and their etco weapons--more strange nozzle-things attached to mechanical backpacks than guns--were all pointed right at him.

"Ray, you wanna do the honors?" said schmoozy guy. His ID tag read 'Venkman' in blocky letters.

The slightly husky man cleared his throat. "Good evening Danny Phantom, alias Invisobill," said Ray...Stanz, according to the nametag. "As a duly designated representative of the City of Amity Park, Adams County, and the State of Illinois, I order you to cease any, and all, supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin, or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension."

"Well, that ought to do it," said Venkman.

Under his breath, to Jazz, Danny muttered "--And our problems just got _worse_."


End file.
